


Yeah It's Overwhelming, But What Else Can We Do?

by flippyspoon



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-monster Billy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 14:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/pseuds/flippyspoon
Summary: I hate this title and I literally couldn't think of anything better lol.Anyway Steve is tired of pretending.





	Yeah It's Overwhelming, But What Else Can We Do?

“Everything’s fine,” Steve muttered. 

He was wearing his Scoops uniform and his Members Only jacket even though it was pushing eighty-five degrees. But the heat wasn’t bothering him now as he stumbled down an alley, taking the shortcut down Vernon to the pool. He was laughing to himself and he had a bottle of cheap bourbon in a paper bag. He was taking shortcuts, not just to cut time on the walk but to avoid people like, oh say, Mrs. Byers or Chief Hopper who might want to know what he was doing drunk in the late afternoon right after work and wandering through town.

“Everything’s fine,” Steve mumbled. “Dear lez...lez just pretend tonight…”

This was stupid. Going to the pool while he was wasted, just to stand outside the gate and get one glimpse of Billy Hargrove in his lifeguard trunks was probably the stupidest idea he’d ever had.

But luckily, he was wasted.

So he didn’t have to worry about that or anything.

_“Jesus, Steven,” his father said. “Patch yourself up and find someplace to go. We have company coming._ ”

That’s what his father had said when he’d come home looking like he’d been trampled by horses for the third time in what, a year and a half or something? He kept thinking that sooner or later they might be...oh, concerned. But there were bigger problems on the table.

Like he’d flipped out at dinner a few months ago. He’d just started shaking because a trick of the light put a demogorgon in the mirror behind the dining table. His parents blatantly ignored it and went on eating. They asked Steve if he was feeling alright finally…

_“No.”_

_“Well...splash some water on your face._ ”

There was the time, well the time was just a couple days before he’d gotten all beaten up again (from that ugly run-in with the Russians), when he’d come home at one in the morning covered in goop and looking like death and carrying his nail bat. His mother had still been up, watching _Love Story_ in her bathrobe. She looked at him and her mouth dropped open but she didn’t ask. If she asked, then she’d know. 

That was the kicker really.

Last night he’d come home drunk.

_“Did you know there are monsters?”_

_“Steven, for God’s sake-”_

_“You must know. You guys aren’t stupid. Mom, look at me.” He’d laughed then. He’d laughed so hard. “Mom!” He said, laughing. “I’ve fought them like three times now. I’ve had the shit kicked out of me so many times! There’s goddamn monsters… Do you know the only thing I’m good at is fighting them?”_

_“Steven, go up to your room and clean up-”_

_He’d started crying._

_“I just wanted you guys to know like I’m not a complete waste of space okay, I can fight monsters-”_

_“Will you please stop making a scene-”_

_“How am I making a scene! We’re in the house by ourselves!”_

_“The neighbors, Steven.”_

The neighbors! Oh no. The neighbors would hear.

Steve looked both ways even though the little tree lined street around the corner from the pool was empty. He stumbled across the road and visions swam in his head of every time his parents had fought and then walked out to greet company with big smiles on their faces.

“Happy family, dear,” Steve mumbled. 

Once Hopper had shown up, right after the whole thing with the Billy Monster, to give the Harringtons an explanation as to why their son kept getting almost killed. They’d smiled him right out of the house before they could be told anything they couldn’t pretend away. 

They didn’t want to know.

There was something so fucked up about not actually wanting to know why your son kept coming home with the shit kicked out of him and swinging a nail bat and having panic attacks at dinner.

“Your parents are something else,” Hop had said, cigarette hanging out of his mouth as he got in his truck.

“Don’t I know it.”

“Oh my God, I have smokes,” Steve said now, having just remembered. He was so smart. People thought he wasn’t smart, he thought now, as he stood under a tree outside the chain link fence around the Hawkins Recreation Center Pool. But he must be smart. He’d remembered cigarettes.

He stood there, looking incredibly suspicious, standing under a tree like a huge creep smoking, and drinking from his bourbon in a bag, while the kids played Marco Polo on the other side of the fence. Billy was standing by the side of the pool looking like a sun kissed Adonis as he spoke to Heather before she walked away. You wouldn’t have known he’d been a drooling, slimy, terrifying Upside Down abomination just about a month ago. Except for the weird, jagged scar marring the otherwise flawless skin on his back, he looked perfect.

He looked perfect just like the Harringtons always looked so perfect.

But Steve had seen Billy lose his shit right after that. A _couple_ times.

Billy didn’t seem to want to pretend anything. When he was pissed, you sure knew it. Steve had seen him sprout tears even as he swung a fist at Tommy before. Billy didn’t seem _able_ to keep his emotions in check unlike Steve who would’ve gotten at least a B in that subject had it been taught at Hawkins High. Though he had never been as good at it as his parents.

It was harder nowadays though. There was too much to pretend about.

Even now he saw Billy frowning into the pool, looking unhappy. 

Then he saw Steve.

_Uh oh._ Maybe he should have been more stealthy.

He stumbled back a step and seeing Billy’s Camaro in the lot, decided he would go pay it a visit.

* * *

What time was it?

Steve had lost track. 

He was sitting in Billy’s car because it had been unlocked. 

It seemed like a good spot to sit and think about how he couldn’t pretend things anymore.

“Are you drunk, Harrington?”

Billy had a smile in his voice as he got in the car and sat next to Steve.

“Mmm...maybe. A little.” Steve slurred and Billy snorted at him and grabbed the bourbon in a bag, taking a swallow. “I don’t remember how to pretend anymore.”

Billy sighed and sat back. He was wearing his sunglasses which meant Steve couldn’t see his pretty eyes. “Take off your shades.”  


“Why?”

“‘Cause I wanna see your pretty eyes,” Steve mumbled.

Billy just stared at him.

Oops. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that.

He took off his sunglasses though.  
That had to be a good sign.

Steve looked up into those pretty eyes. 

_Like the ocean_. That was probably what everyone told him.

But it was more than that. He’d seen those eyes turn black. He’d seen those eyes looking terrified.

Billy’s eyes told the truth.

“How are you?” Steve said.

“Shitty,” Billy cracked.

Steve grinned when he said that. “Good.”

Billy actually looked hurt by that. They were far past the point where Steve should be taking pleasure in Billy’s pain by now. “What-”

“I mean no…” Steve patted Billy’s thigh and then just sort of left his hand there because Billy’s freckled skin was warm and because, well, Steve had wanted to do that for a while. “I mean not good that you’re shitty. But like when you feel shitty you _say_ you feel shitty.”

“Okay,” Billy said with a snort. “How are you?”

“ _Shitty_ ,” Steve snapped.

“Right.”

They sat smoking in the silence for a while and it felt so good to sit there next to somebody who could admit when they felt shitty and knew Steve. Billy really knew Steve, he felt. It was crazy how Billy knew Steve…

“I just don’t wanna pretend anymore,” Steve mumbled suddenly. He had probably made that pretty clear already. But it was all that was on his mind. “‘Cause it’s _bullshit_.”

He remembered Nancy saying it and now so much farther down the line, he felt a burst of sympathy for Nancy who had just wanted to stop pretending that everything was fine. No wonder she’d dumped him. He felt like going back in time to that Steve and punching him out before Billy got the chance.

Billy nodded and gave him a long look. Billy didn’t pretend but that didn’t mean he was necessarily _easy_ to read all the time. Especially while Steve was this drunk. Billy didn’t look pissed but he didn’t look happy either. 

Maybe that was what sad looked like on Billy.

He wondered if Billy had been sad.

He should have kept up with Billy more since the monster thing.  
They should be friends, Steve thought, his fingers twitching on Billy’s thigh. 

His breathing was too heavy. He was too drunk.

Was that why he was feeling this way?  
No, he’d been feeling this way a while…

“So don’t,” Billy said, still staring at him. “Don’t pretend then. I guess. Screw that.”

“Okay, I won’t,” Steve said quickly.

Billy laughed at that. He looked so beautiful when he laughed all soft like that. Steve had never heard him do it. He’d just heard him laugh like he wanted attention or like he was maybe about to start crying and was laughing instead like during that fight or anyway Steve had thought so…

“Well, I dunno really what you’re talking about, man,” Billy said, taking a drag. “But alright. What does Steve Harrington not pretending look like?”

“It means like...I say whatever I feel okay?” Steve babbled. “And it doesn’t matter what the neighbors think or that we have company coming or that we have to keep up _appearances_ -”

“Got it. Got it.” Billy squinted at him. “So how does Steve Harrington feel today? No pretending.”

“I’m- I’m _mad_ and I’m sad, I guess,” Steve said, licking his lips. “Because it’s like you and I save the town like you almost _died_ and we both did, I mean I fought monsters. You had to fight off being one! And my parents don’t know but they know _something_ happened! They don’t care and they don’t want to care and I’m just supposed to be fine! And then what, we just go back like it’s all fine and nothing happened and I’m scooping ice cream and you’re at the pool like… I don’t know…”

“What else?” Billy said, looking genuinely curious now.

“And...and I thought like maybe we were friends now but we don’t hang out which I dunno, I guess I’m a pathetic piece of shit whining about that while I’m drunk…” He laughed then. Steve Harrington at his lowest of the low. “But like I haven’t said shit to you either because...But it’s because I’m scared to see you okay because you’ll _know_ and-”

“Know what?” Billy said. He hadn’t looked away. 

Steve thought he might be about to catch fire.

He took a long swallow of his bourbon and said, “You’ll know that I like you.”

Billy was still staring at him, the corners of his mouth turned up just a little around his cigarette.

“I like this not pretending King Steve,” Billy said.

“Shut up,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Whatever. I’m just drunk-”

“You don’t get to take it back!” Billy sputtered and he finally looked away, chewing his lip.

_Oh_.

Steve smiled like a big dope and he squeezed Billy’s thigh until Billy looked at him again.

Billy grinned and started up his car. “Look, man. I’m not kissin’ you til your sober because you probably taste like death anyway. You want to go get some burgers? You’re buying.”

“Yeah,” Steve muttered. He started to move his hand and Billy frowned and moved it back. 

“No take backs,” Billy said.

“Okay, no take backs,” Steve said, watching Billy as he drove them all of six blocks to the diner. “No take backs and no pretending.”

 


End file.
